Candlelight
Though they are all feeling overwhelmed and her sister just had her heart broken, Tina forgets the time. It is Queenie who pulls Tina out of her own head and reminds her that the sun is setting.
Tina jolts into the present, nearly flinging herself across the room to the cedar cabinet and ripping the doors open. Newt, who has been sitting bow-legged in the mint-green chair by the fireplace, looks up in sudden interest. Tina’s throat tightens as her fingers wrap around the stem of the menorah, her knuckles going white. The goblin silver was cool in her hand, firm and familiar.
By the time she pulls herself back to the present to set the menorah on the table, Queenie has gotten out the candles and Newt is on his feet, holding out a no-maj Banjo lighter in his hand. They each smile weakly at her encouragingly despite the pain she knows they all are going through. She manages to return the gesture and gently sets the menorah on the table.
It stands tall and nobly, and as Queenie places the first candle, Tina’s dark thoughts are briefly pushed aside by the fond memories of lighting this menorah with their parents and, later, their grandfather.
Newt isn’t quite sure how to go about lighting the shammus, but the Goldstien sisters gently guide him through it. It’s nice, having Newt here, and even though the heavy atmosphere is bearing down on them, there is still a glimmer of wonder in his eyes that reminds Tina of the first time Queenie lit the menorah—it’s a magic all of its own, entirely independent from the kind they were born with.
It feels better, if a bit awkward, to use a lighter. In the aftermath of Credence’s murder, Tina doesn’t feel up to using her wand. The image of her fellow aurors’ spells ripping the obscurus apart is too fresh in her mind, her grief too raw.
Queenie takes hold of the shammus candle in her right hand and takes ahold of Newt’s hand with her left. The magizoologist looks down at her elegant fingers, eyebrows raised. He purses his lips and glances at Tina from beneath his fringe, and offers her his left palm. The gesture makes her tear up.
Queenie begins to say the blessings over the Candles, her voice melodic, Tina joining soon after.
Newt’s hand is calloused, but warm, and wraps around her fingers oh so gently. She remembers how strong that gentle hand could be, how securely it gripped her when she leapt from the Death Potion and through the underbelly of the Woolworth building.
Yet one of her hands feels empty. The last time they were at this table, Jacob had been with them.
Queenie’s voice breaks. Tina backpedals quickly, but the thought has already done its damage. Tina pushes through and continues the second blessing, the Blessing for the Chanukkah Miracle, even as Queenie’s chin dimples and quivers and tears overflow down her cheeks.
There are so many miracles that Tina is grateful for, in this moment. The miracle that once was Credence Barebone; the miracle that Gellert Grindelwald was exposed; Newt’s niffler getting loose and wreaking havoc in the bank had been a masked miracle; and, of course, Jacob Kowalski, for none of them would be standing here, together, without him.
Tina finds that she is too choked up to finish the final blessing.
Newt sniffs wetly and she looks up to see tears in his eyes, golden in the candlelight. It makes her breath catch in a way that has nothing to do with her wild, aggrieved emotions.
She is aware that she and Queenie have been speaking Yiddish for the blessings and that Newt most likely has no idea what has been said. There is no reason that he should know the proper ceremony. Perhaps he does, though. Perhaps he was present for a Chanukkah somewhere during his year in the field, studying creatures, because he clears his throat, wets his lips, and begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
He is obviously unpracticed. It wouldn’t surprise Tina if Newt hadn’t set foot in a holy building since childhood. His recitation of the Lord’s Prayer is choppy. He has to periodically pause and drag the next phrase out of the depth of memory with some effort. She is not familiar with the Lord’s Prayer herself, but Tina is quite sure he makes up a line or two.
It’s not the shehecheyanu, but it’s similar, and the gesture is so sincere and tender that Tina can feel her heart breaking in her chest. She lights the first candle, her voice still coiled like an occamy in her throat. She squeezes Newt’s hand, hard, and he squeezes her back until her knucklebones grind together. The pain is grounding. She welcomes the crush.